The competitiveness which exists in the computing market has had a positive effect for the purchasing consumer by driving prices down on most computer-related equipment and peripherals. When the substantial increase in computer sales is coupled with the equally large number of consumers becoming “connected” to global communication packet-switched networks (e.g., one of which is commonly known as the Internet), and the enormous potential for reaching those connected consumers with product advertising, a very competitive marketplace results to place as much web page advertising in front of the computer user as is possible.
One necessary component of a computing system, the monitor, is also experiencing rapid cost reductions and technological change. The early “standard” fourteen-inch display was a common fixture for most computing systems. Rapid advances in display technology have driven prices down, such that the average consumer no longer purchases a computer with a once-standard fourteen-inch monitor, but is more likely to buy a packaged system having a seventeen inch display. Furthermore, the larger nineteen and twenty-one inch units are also becoming more popular since the costs for such units are no longer prohibitive for the average consumer.
Along similar lines of technology, video technology has also evolved such that these larger monitors can now handle greater resolutions allowing for the presentation of more information in a viewable area (hereinafter called a “viewport”) to the user. However, to accommodate the majority of legacy systems projected to currently exist in the hands of consumers, and that are configured at predominantly the 640×480 resolution, many software developers write applications for a resolution of 640×480. With a higher number of larger monitors now in use, the 640×480 resolution is less adequate and users now reconfigure to higher resolutions (e.g., 800×600, 1024×768, etc.) which impacts the way the information is presented to the user.
With the advent of a global communication packet-switched network (GCN) and e-commerce, display resolution eventually translates into dollars in the context of banner advertising on web pages. One commercial aspect of the GCN provides that those website server owners who allow vendor advertising on their web pages receive compensation according to the number of “hits” a particular banner generates. The more hits, the greater the compensation for the website owner. Therefore, the more popular or widely known the advertising product, the greater the potential for a large number of hits having a corresponding increase in revenue for the website owner.
With web page “real estate” becoming a revenue-generating aspect, methods for optimizing use of such real estate become increasingly important. Considering the viewport aspects of monitor resolution and display size, web page real estate can be optimized to obtain the most dollars when presenting advertising banners to the consumer. However, when moving to higher resolutions, existing methods spread the banners out by inserting spacing material between the banners while maintaining the size of the banner. Thus, content objects which were a fixed distance apart under a low resolution of 640×480 are now further apart when viewed at a resolution of 1024×768. The content objects are visually centered by being spaced further apart to display information to the user in a more presentable manner by, for example, providing symmetry around a central horizontal and/or vertical axis.
The economic aspects of placing more advertising content in front of the viewer are directly impacted by the spacing of content objects, since website server owners are paid according to the amount of advertising real estate placed in front of the viewer. Inserting additional spacing material between content objects does not take advantage of the increase in viewing area provided to the viewer under higher resolutions. Therefore, it is desirable to employ a technique where an increase in display resolution provides a corresponding increase in banner income by increasing the amount of advertising real estate placed on the viewer's display without the insertion of spacing material. Such an application enhances optimization of banner advertising on web pages by now being able to charge for web page real estate presented at the user level.